


Carpe Panem

by Kahika



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Allergies, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 20:07:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3622593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahika/pseuds/Kahika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liara looks at Shepard like she's a beautiful cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pure. Garrus doesn't even know what a cinnamon roll is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carpe Panem

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [](http://bisexualzuko.tumblr.com)[bisexualzuko](http://bisexualzuko.tumblr.com)'s [important OTP question](http://pohutukaryl.tumblr.com/post/114704086671/bisexualzuko-important-otp-questions-which) and [](http://br0lan.tumblr.com)[br0lan](http://br0lan.tumblr.com)'s [second hand story of the most hardcore kid he's ever heard of](http://web.archive.org/web/20151121010846/http://br0lan.tumblr.com/post/79335694156/my-coworker-just-told-me-about-a-kid-he-knew-in).

It occurs to Garrus midway through adjusting his new sniper scope that he probably looks a little crazy using a scope without a rifle to look across the Presidium Commons, but spying on your CO on shore leave is a completely legitimate use of weapon mods. Thank you, Alliance funding.

"Oh, Liara's with her," he says.

"I could have told you that," Tali points out, because Apollo's Cafe isn't _that_ far from Meridian Place, and they'd all know Shepard and Liara at a thousand paces.

He ignores this. "They look... happy. Wow. It's nice to see them relaxing for a change."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Ashley says. "I don't think they said two words to each other in the mess this morning; they both spent the whole meal looking at datapads. Or if they did talk, it was probably things like, 'Another human colony was hit this morning.' 'By the goddess! I'll have some of my agents send supplies.'"

"Your Commander Shepard could use work," says Tali.

"But your Liara impression was _perfect_ ," Garrus adds, perturbed.

Ashley waves a hand in front of his scope, and when he puts it down to look at her, she's smirking and holding out her hand.

"I think I've earned a look," she says.

Garrus hands it over, and promptly gets distracted when his and Tali's dextro drinks finally arrive. He tips the waiter, tries not to think about how she looks a little like Liara, and then starts sipping on his drink as he glances back at Shepard and Liara.

"Oh, I think I'm going to be sick," says Ashley, not sounding nauseated in the least. "Liara's looking at Shepard like she's a beautiful cinnamon roll."

He blinks. "I don't even know what that is."

"It's a human baked food," says Tali. "Apparently they're 'too good for this world, too pure'." Garrus stares. "What? I was a teenager on the extranet."

"Wait," says Ashley, lowering the scope. "Are you guys telling me you've never had cinnamon rolls before?"

Garrus gives her a pointed look, and assumes Tali's doing the same.

"No dextro bakers have made cinnamon rolls?" she amends it, bringing up a search engine on her omnitool. "Oh my god, someone's got to have them."

Her omnitool flashes, and she passes the scope to Tali. "I'll be right back!"

Garrus shakes his head as he watches her go, then turns back to Tali, who's putting the scope down.

"How come you guys got to see them looking cute and all I catch is them making out?"

"You win some, you lose some," he says. "And you just won a homeworld."

Tali hands back the scope for him to put away in a component of his armor. "I guess I did." She pauses, and when she speaks again, her voice is gentler. "Have you heard from Palaven?"

Garrus sets his drink on the fence, staring across at the marketplace. "Nothing from my family. What Allers was calling the 'Miracle at Palaven' looks like it's turning out to be just a setback."

"I'm sorry," says Tali, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Here I am happy about getting a homeworld, and yours is..."

"I don't want to talk about it," he says, but without any real bitterness. He's happy for her - they've been through too much together for him not to be - and he'd hate to begrudge her a homeworld when it's not like she personally ordered a Reaper strike on Palaven. But in his worst moments, it does feel brutally unfair.

Tali nods. "I always wanted to see Palaven," she says. "A whole world where I could eat the food. It seemed like a myth."

Garrus sighs. "Keelah se'lai."

She puts her arm around his shoulder, leaning against him in a sideways hug, and he lets her do it. He'll talk about the battle with the Alliance soldiers or Wrex, but they're not the hugging types, always aware of the ruthless calculus of war, so some outright sympathy like this is... nice.

They're still like that when Ashley comes back a moment later with a box in her hands, but they merely ease apart when she smirks. "Whoa, that's not fair: How am I supposed to tell if you're looking at him like a cinnamon roll?"

"I'm not," Tali says, sounding very much like she's rolling her eyes behind her mask. "But let's see the rolls, then."

Ashley pops the cover of the box, and Garrus squints into it. With the icing on top of the pastry spirals, they do look pretty delicious, but he wouldn't go as far as beauty and purity. Humans are weird.

"I couldn't find a dextro baker who could do them today - said she'd have to order the ingredients specially - but she'll e-mail me when she's got them so she can make them the next time we have shore leave. These are levo."

"I never thought I'd see these in person," says Tali. "I thought they were just something humans made up and continued as a mass joke on the galaxy."

"You'll eat them one day," Ashley says, a promise in her tone.

Garrus looks up at the girls, then back into the box. They could be attacked by Cerberus or the Reapers or even both tomorrow. These things are oddly intriguing, and if no one's going to look at him like a beautiful cinnamon roll, he'll at least go out knowing how beautiful they really are.

"We might not _get_ a one day," he says, and he picks up a roll and starts eating it.

Ashley gasps, and immediately tries to slam the box closed. (The box is cardboard, so this doesn't go well.) Tali simply sighs. "Oh, you boshtet, not again!"

"This has happened _before_?" says Ashley, her hand halfway to her comm.

"I wasn't there, but apparently Shepard had a drinking binge last year and Garrus decided she needed some company," Tali says. Ah: After Horizon. "Kasumi hadn't stocked dextro booze in the lounge yet."

Garrus coughs, but manfully licks the icing anyway as Ashley calls Dr. Chakwas.

"Okay, if you're taking one for Team Dextro, I have to know," says Tali. "How is it?"

"It's too good for this space station," Garrus says without a shred of irony, rapt even as air starts getting hard to come by. He unclips the front piece of armor on his thigh, takes out an epipen from his armor's hidden compartment, and stabs himself with it. "Forget Chakwas: Call the hospital."

The epishakes hit him then, and the last thing he sees before he passes out is Tali grabbing him by the shoulders and Ashley darting behind him, one hand on her comm.


End file.
